Porsche Design Collaborates On Luxury Miami Car-Elevator Condo

Imagine: a sleek, elegant condominium building on the Miami oceanfront, equipped with all the conveniences modern life can afford, plus a glass elevator--where your car rides, too.

In fact, you ride in your car up the glass elevator and straight to your high-rise apartment. That's exactly what's being planned in Miami as a collaboration between Porsche Design Group and a local Miami developer, reports the Miami Herald.

Car-centric luxury condos and subdivisions are nothing new--even Vanilla Ice has one--but this one aims to take the concept to the next level. Literally.

So how does it work? Quite simply, actually, despite all the behind-the-scenes machinery. A resident drives their car into the building, selects the desired floor, and a robotic arm lifts the car into the elevator. Once at the proper floor, the arm goes into action again, dropping the car right at the front door. Agoraphobics rejoice--there's no longer any need to expose oneself to more than a few minutes of the "outside."

Of course, if you have a Bentley, Rolls-Royce, or other hyper car, there's every reason to avoid the banality of actually walking to a semi-public elevator and touching--gasp!--a button pressed by who knows how many unwashed hands. Why not seat your designer-clad rump directly in your hand-stitched leather seat just a pace from your own front door?

The condo is planned as a 57-story building on Collins avenue, and will be called Porsche Design Tower. It will be the first and last such building in South Florida, but the developer, Gil Dezer, says he hopes to build more in other parts of the U.S., though he plans to keep it as exclusive a concept as possible.

The building will hold 132 housing units, with each getting at least two parking spaces. Larger units will be allowed four spots. Only three elevators will be used, however, so the Porsche Design Tower may also be the invention of another new vehicular phenomenon: the in-building traffic jam.